Acute poisoning remains a common cause of morbidity and even mortality in children and adults. However, if ingested poison can be removed from the gastrointestinal tract before being absorbed, the risk of severe poisoning is prevented or reduced. Stomach emptying is among the most time-honored and widely accepted medical treatments for ingested poisons. Because of this, physicians have routinely treated poison and overdose patients by performing gastric lavage.
A major problem associated with gastric lavage involves the clogging of the evacuation devices used to perform the procedure. Additionally, in-wall vacuum systems used in the procedure generally provide more steady suction than is necessary. Because of this, a valve is required to regulate the flow from the patient to the vacuum source.
The problem resulting from the use of a suction control valve is that the valve and hose connectors tend to clog and plug-up with stomach contents or pill fragments. Because of this, many hospitals have abandoned the in-wall vacuum units in favor of a hand plunger device. Use of the hand plunger, however, creates its own unique problems in that the plunger unit is costly, difficult to operate, and requires the use of an additional technician.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,832 (Lopez) describes a system for administering medication nasally to a patient and involves the use of a plastic connector having a series of flanges of increasing diameter that allows it to be inserted into flexible plastic gastric tubes of different sizes. The plastic connector used with this system--which can also be connected to suction when it is desired to remove fluid from a patient's stomach--highlights some of the problems identified above in that the tapering of the connection ends results in a void between the inside wall of the gastric tube and the outside wall of the connector. This void often fills with pill fragments or stomach contents that clog the evacuation tube.
A device that would reduce the number of qualified personnel required to perform a gastric lavage, allow an operator to vary the degree of suction to or from a patient, reduce the possibility of line obstruction, provide for easy clearing of pill fragments or stomach contents, be less costly, and disposable would be an important advancement in the art.